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Migrants rights
Californian gold rush attracts tens of thousands of people from Europe, Latin America, Australia and China. In 1850 California introduces a new tax on alien gold miners, targeting the Chinese. -
Migrants rights
Gold is discovered in New South Wales and Victoria, followed by other colonies until 1890s. The gold rushes result in mass migration from the British Isles, Europe, America and China.Satirical depiction of female immigrants arriving in England from Pacific, Caribbean and African countries, highlighting common racial caricaturing in the popular media of the time, 1851. -
Migrants rights
Victoria introduces the first Immigration Restriction Act in Australia aimed at limiting Chinese immigration. Other Australian colonies soon follow. -
migrants rights
Chinese miners outnumber European miners by at least three to one at the Buckland River goldfields in Victoria. This sparks racial tensions culminating in a violent anti-Chinese riot in which at least three Chinese miners are killed. -
Migrants rights
Queensland sugar plantation owners commence forcible labour recruitment of Pacific Islanders. About 62,000 'kanakas' are 'blackbirded' (kidnapped) before the practice ceases in 1901. -
Migrants rights
Local Indigenous populations continue to resist settlers and immigrants. Killings of local Aboriginal populations continue across Australia until the early 1900s. -
Migrants rights
A close relationship between the 'worst' of the human races and the 'best' of the apes is claimed by German scientist Ernst Haeckel in Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte. -
Migrants rights
Charles Darwin's Descent of Man is published which would fundamentally influence political and social theories about the origins, evolution and hierarchies of human races. 'Although the existing races of man differ in many respects, as in colour, hair, shape of skull, proportions of the body, etc, yet if their whole organisation be taken into consideration they are found to resemble each other in a multitude of points.' -
Migrants rights
Melbourne entrepreneur Edward Cole begins producing pamphlets, essays and medals promoting world peace and arguing against racially-based immigration policies. His medal offers a positive interpretation of Darwin's theory of the origins of the human species. -
Migrants rights
The term 'eugenics' is coined by British anthropologist Francis Galton, a belief in human improvement through selective breeding: 'What is termed in Greek, 'eugenes' namely, good in stock, hereditarily endowed with noble qualities.' -
Migrants rights
Aboriginal people are believed to be a dying race, requiring children of mixed descent to be absorbed into the 'white' community. The Aborigines Act officially commences the removal of Aboriginal children in Victoria. -
Migrants rights
William Barak, head man for the Woirurrung at Coranderrk Aboriginal Reserve near Healesville petitions the Victorian Government for better rights and land on behalf of the residents. 'We Blacks of Aboriginal Blood, wish to have now freedom for all our life time.'